John Herschel discovered NGC 6200 = h3643 on 1 Jul 1834 and recorded "a great space full of milky way stars, so thickly sown as to merit being called a cluster." His position and description matches this large cluster.

200/250mm - 8" (7/13/91 - Southern Baja): about 75 stars in a 20' diameter at 63x. Bright, large, rich, many stars mag 9-11 over a carpet of faint stars. Mag 7.1 SAO 227144 is off the SE edge 13' from the center of the cluster.

400/500mm - 22" (6/28/06 - Hawaii): at 110x this large, rich open cluster resolves into roughly 200 stars, extending over one-half the 22mm Panoptic field (~20'x15'). A very close triple star is near the center (one component fainter) and a wider pair lies 3.5' NE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb